BridgeBio Bags $135M For “Hub and Spoke” Rare Disease Drug R&D
Summary
BridgeBio wants to reduce that unmet need with an unusual model for developing drugs to treat rare genetic diseases, and it now has $135 million in new funding.Formed in 2015, BridgeBio largely kept under wraps until early this year, when it emerged with what it calls a “hub and spoke” corporate structure.BridgeBio now says it has a pipeline of 10 drugs in various stages of development for rare diseases in cancer, cardiology, dermatology, neurology, and endocrinology.Subsidiaries include Eidos Therapeutics, a Palo Alto company launched in April to develop a treatment for transthyretin amyloidosis, a fatal heart disease.Other BridgeBio programs include Menlo Park, CA-based PellePharm, whose lead drug is in mid-stage clinical trials in basal cell carcinoma.